Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Devtheism’
Short to round out the page.
Devtheism is a metacommentary adventure created by the late Mohammad Fahmi, better known as fahmitsu, who was an indie dev in Indonesia responsible for bringing various titles, such as Coffee Talk, to life.
Here we follow a man living at home, waking from a nightmare involving people accusing him of killing others, only for the comments to not necessarily stop when he wakes up.
In this world, there are many who believe in ‘the developers’, whom have crafted the world and curated its every move since inception. Our protagonist is one of these such individuals, along with his family and many others in his community.
However, upon waking up from his nightmare, he enters a park to the noise of angry people shouting awful statements. Realizing that the argument will forever loop in circles, the man will leave to go on a journey in the hopes of proving the existence of the developers, taking him to Faith Island and seeing the stones that house the names of the developers.
It’s a story about growth, but it also does not take a genius to realize the direct parallels that this story is mirroring. I did say it was a metacommentary, after all, and it dives straight in to one of the most toxic-riddled discussions that there is; religious stereotypes.
As a direct allegory to his experiences from the Internet as a Muslim, fahmitsu uses those exact stereotypes to prove his point; painting a picture of people who see a name and shout the first thing that pops in to their head in an attempt to hurt.
Our protagonist attempts to argue with them about it, bringing up that generalizations are dangerous — not to mention that they can be done the other way to an equally negative reaction. However it does not change the fact that this discussion never seems to end — only deflects to a different angle, from whether or not a higher power exists, to whether or not people are compatible, to even if those people are ‘smart’.
As our protagonist realizes, it’s exhausting to have to justify something to others that, quite frankly, is none of their business. Yet it also has a strange feeling of knowing that before it even begins — after all, the game was born from comments seen on the internet.
Yet it is in the little interactions that you and others can find solace, for there are many in the world that don’t feel compelled to spout nonsense at the drop of a hat. Faith island has people that simply exist with their faith, and there are many that coexist with them peacefully. It’s a soothing concept, one that also details a journey of faith for many as they reaffirm themselves along the way.
There are no ‘RPG’ elements to worry about, only a story to experience.
In a funny way, it’s a great reminder to go outside instead of attempting online discourse. Sure, that doesn’t solve our problems regarding stereotypes of religious individuals, but it is a great reminder that the online world may not be a great indicator of what the people around you actually can be. No matter how you interact with the medium, hopefully you’ve gained something.
